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\lhead{Andrew O'Neill -- \today}
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\section{What are your strengths and weaknesses as a writer? What
part(s) of the writing process do you find easy? What part(s) do
you find difficult?}

My greatest strength as a writer is my ability to type quickly
without looking at the keyboard. This allows me to get my
thoughts on paper where I can read them back and make changes
where I need to. Reading back what I wrote out loud or a day
later really makes the mistakes very obvious and helps me edit my
writing. But, this is only effective if I actually go back and
read or edit whatever I am writing, which doesn't happen unless
it is critically important.

My greatest weakness is trying to explain a topic or give
directions in a clear and concise way. For example, when people
ask me how to do something on the computer I have trouble writing
the directions in a way that is easy to follow. I think part of
that is not knowing the technical experience of the audience. In
undergrad we were required to take a Junior year writing course
that was specific to our major. At the time I was still majoring
in Computer Science, and I had to pick a simple task for the
professor to complete on the computer and write the directions. I
chose to have them install a Drive Cleaner and run an analysis.
My directions didn't fit on a single page.

The easiest part of the writing process for me is probably
drafting and editing for grammar. Like I mentioned earlier, I can
get my thoughts onto ``paper'' quickly. Since I can look at the
screen while I'm writing I notice and correct a lot of mistakes
as they occur instead of after the fact while editing. Editing
for grammar and spelling is pretty easy to since there are spell
checkers etc. for most software.

The most difficult part of the writing process editing for
clarity, conciseness, and getting rid of filler. The problem for
me is that all through school teachers put emphasis on meeting
some page or word quota. When in reality unless I'm writing a
novel I want to be as brief as possible. No one reading my report
is going to compliment me on my prose. So I have been trained to
fill pages with useless text, and repetition disguised as new
ideas. Unless I'm told otherwise I would assume the audience for
these papers is only the teacher. You read the book why do you
want me to rewrite it for you. I don't know if this counts as a
difficulty, but I despise that formula that every teacher seems
to love. An intro paragraph, three reasons, and a conclusion.
Each paragraph needing an intro and outro. When I write like this
I feel that my writing is robotic and actually less fluid.

This is my conclusion paragraph. I conclude that I have strengths
and weaknesses in writing. Also, I am going to repeat the three
statements I stated to reinforce this conclusion. This is the end
of my conclusion.

\section{What are your strengths and weaknesses as a speaker?
What part(s) of creating and giving presentations do you find
easy? What part(s) do you find difficult?}

My only (perceived) strength in speaking is delivering
one-liners. I would be satisfied if I could give a Mitch
Hedberg-esque presentation. When I present, I usually know one or
two things I plan on saying per slide then try to fill time by
improvising which can go well or totally flop depending on how
nervous I feel. It seems to work since I generally receive good
grades, but I feel like I could benefit from a more critical
evaluation. 

When I create a presentation I usually put exactly what I want to
say on the slides. This makes the presentation easier to present
and keeps me on track. The audience may think I'm just reading
the slides but usually its all I feel like telling them unless
they specifically ask for details.

My greatest weakness is definitely trying to fill time. When I
present I feel like the information I'm presenting is not
important and I have very little to say about it. This causes me
to try to stretch out what little things I have to say. If I can
give a presentation in 5 minutes and tell you everything I think
is important why should I try to fill 15 minutes. When my
audience doesn't know what I'm talking about it is even worse. I
either try to explain every detail and take way to long or brush
over all the details and not really give any good information
about what I'm presenting.

\section{What are your strengths and weaknesses as a member of a
team or a group? What part(s) of teamwork do you find easy? What
part(s) do you find difficult?}

In a group I typically find myself either leading or in charge of
communicating between the members. This comes really naturally to
me since I tend to coordinate meeting and events with my friends.
Coordinating friends, I find, can usually be harder because they
don't feel required to respond or don't feel like committing to
anything without ample persuasion.

With that being said, I typically hate coordinating for groups;
Especially randomly assigned groups. With people you don't know
it's hard to get them to accept your deadlines. I worked in many
teams on group presentations and had members show up at the
beginning of class with their section of the powerpoint expecting
us to include it in our presentation. If someone nicer than
myself was willing to add it in they might be included otherwise
I told them they could present after us. To me if someone doesn't
put in an effort to work with the group then they can not
present as part of it.

Some groups I have worked with have been extremely good. Most
recently the project management team I was on was really
efficient. We usually met once or twice a week to work on the
materials to present. We also utilized Google Docs presentations
so we could all work on the presentation simultaneously from
different locations. This helped because we didn't have to pass
around our versions of the presentation then try to mash them
into one. We also had a final draft or near final draft of the
presentation ready 2-3 days before the due date. This gave us
time to practice it and time ourselves the day before and usually
again the morning of the presentation.

\section{What are your three or four specific goals for improving
your communication in PSM 602 this semester?}

I would love to learn to write more concisely. I hate reading
filler and I hate writing it, but I typically write more because
I have to assume my audience are Neanderthals and I fear seeing
"More Detail" written in red ink on my paper. If I thought you
needed more detail I would have given it to you!

I hope to improve my public speaking ability. When I talk to an
audience I want to be able to judge whether I need to say more or
less. Also, I tend to look at only one person when I speak and
when I look somewhere else it tends to be down, at my notes, or
at the slides, and I would like to look around at people more. I
would also like to get the audience more engaged in what I'm
talking about. Sometimes I feel really excited about something
then I look around and everyone could not care less what I'm
saying.

I would also like to learn to deal with worthless group members
more effectively. In random groups its really hard to identify
the problematic members before it is too late. Learning how to
compromise and negotiate with group members would also be
helpful.

\section{How do you intend to reach those goals? How can I best
help you meet your goals?}

The best thing you could do to help me improve is to be
incredibly critical of all my presentations and writing. I would
rather hear what was wrong than what was right so I can work on
correcting my mistakes. If the only feedback is `good job
\verb+:)+' I want that to mean that I had a perfect paper or
presentation. This will help me work on any deficiencies and
improve my overall communication.

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